I saw in the news that a 7 year old boy had died after a crash in Monroe County. This tragedy caused me to look at our statistics for 2014 to see how often we lost unrestrained children in crashes.
I found 12 crash reports with unrestrained children. Four drivers were charged with vehicular homicide. One was charged with aggravated child neglect.
Three drivers in those crashes died, including two mothers and one father of unrestrained children.
Two were in vehicles driven by a 16 year old.
Two were in vehicles operated by an impaired driver.
I don't understand how any driver would not require a child to be properly restrained in a vehicle. Children are precious cargo. They deserve the best safety equipment available in the vehicle. They deserve a sober driver.
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I worked a vehicular assault last year in which the mother had her small child sitting on her lap when she crashed. Luckily, the child survived due to extensive air bags including a lower legs air bag but he suffered a fractured arm and ruptured spleen.
ReplyDeleteThat was a lucky child. We had a case once in which the child was on a lap in the front seat and the airbag deployed and killed the child. That was about 10 years ago. We prosecuted and convicted for child neglect, but got overturned by the Supreme Court.
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